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| - Parton revealed that she had declined the award from Trump and Biden in a 2021 interview. They have not commented on her decision.
On Jan. 4, 2025, U.S. President Joe Biden awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the nation's highest civilian honor — to 19 people including Hillary Clinton, Michael J. Fox, Bono and Jane Goodall. A number of online posts noted that iconic country singer, Dolly Parton, had never received the medal — and had also turned it down multiple times.
A Threads user noted in January 2025, "Today I learned that Dolly Parton has been offered the Presidential Medal 3 times and has declined each time." A popular X post from 2023 highlighted Parton's reported declining of the medal from both U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Biden.
(X user @thetolerantweft)
Parton did indeed decline the medal from both Trump and Biden a total of three times, according to her own admission. In an interview, she revealed she was unable to accept for a range of reasons. The Trump and Biden administrations have not commented on Parton's story.
In February 2021, Parton appeared on NBC's "Today" to discuss a Super Bowl advertisement in which she participated. Host Jenna Bush Hager asked, "We read that President Obama's biggest mistake was not giving you the Medal of Freedom, and he said he's going to call his friend Joe [Biden]. Well, have you heard from Joe?" Parton replied:
Well, I actually have. To be honest, in all fairness, I got offered the Freedom award from the Trump administration. I couldn't accept it because my husband was ill, and then they asked me again about it and I wouldn't travel because of the COVID. So, now I feel like if I take it, I'll be doing politics, so I'm not sure. I don't work for those awards. It'd be nice, but I'm not sure that I even deserve it. But that's a nice compliment for people to think that I might deserve it.
Per Parton's own words, the Trump administration offered her the Medal of Freedom twice, and the Biden administration reached out to her once, leading to her declining it three times.
We have reached out to the Biden administration as well as Trump's transition team and will update this story if we learn more.
In a 2020 interview, former President Barack Obama told television host Stephen Colbert that he was "shocked" Parton had not yet received the award. He said: "Actually that was a screw-up. I think I assumed that she had already got one. And that was incorrect. I'm surprised. She deserves one. I'll call Biden."
Parton has often shied away from talking about her politics, though she has been critical of politicians in general before. In 2023, she released a song, "World on Fire," in which she criticized politicians on both sides of the aisle, singing: "Don't get me started on politics. Now how are we to live in a world like this? … Greedy politicians, present and past. They wouldn't know the truth if it bit 'em in the a**."
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